confession, maybe to Peter Carey

I have a confession to make. I like cheap, nasty sushi. I'm not sure who it is that I feel am now ready to confess this to - my old self, the sushi snob, is probably as good as anyone. My two favourite kinds of sushi are: a nigiri where the fish has been covered with a thin latticework of mayonnaise that has then been blow torched and 'purorn furai' - a giant maki with a fat tempura prawn inside.

Sushi snobs would certainly balk at these as they slid past on the belt. I used to be a sushi snob. I assumed no restaurant in South Africa really knew anything about the hallowed art of sushi but I'd still eat it as often as possible. I would begin a sushi meal out (beacause when you eat sushi, by god you will allow naught but sushi to pass your lips) with the pompous question 'How is the tuna today?' The waiter most times would say 'Ja, there isn't any today. Sorry.' and I, the sushi aficionado would then crumple dejectedly over my sparkling mineral water and resign myself to an evening of infuriating limitations. No tuna? Man it sucks living in the third world... While I waited for my order, the amazing sushi I wasn't having would float though my mind on an imaginary round-a-belt. A sushi meal in Japan, I imagined, would be entirely different. There would be at least 3000 varieties of fish on offer, each more beautiful and bizarre than anything available in Greenpoint, Cape Town let alone Greenside, Jozi. I was being cheated out of an unimaginable culinary experience - that not many could handle but that I would not only handle, but relish dammit - all because down at the bottom of the continent, no chef had the balls to ante up and no patron had the stomach to see them. And so as I wolfed down the salmon rolls and salmon maki and salmon sashimi, though I cooed and puffed appreciatively, my mind would still drift not just to the tuna I wished I was eating but the two thousand nine hundred and ninety eight other complicated fishes I was sure I would love, as soon as I had met them.

In Peter Carey's book (that I have mentioned before) Wrong About Japan, his son, a manga and anime freak, comes with his dad to Japan on the proviso that they never indulge the romantic notion of 'Real' Japan. Carey, a total Nipponophile argues against but eventually agrees to his sons terms: they are not to indulge in a single temple, geisha, museum, festival, garden, historic site, painting, kimono or traditional meal. It's extreme sure, but the kid while only 12 at the time must have known what his dad would have done, unchecked. I think the that sushi I dreamt of - all silver tentacles and glistening slime - qualifies as the 'Real' Japan that Carey dreamt of too.

Real Japan... the other two thousand and ninety eight. I have met some of them, and I meet new ones all the time. I'm sorry former me. I'm sorry Peter Carey. I'm sorry sushi snobs all over the world: I don't like them, I kind of hate them. I thought I could handle them but I can't. Alas, my snob-self would die of shame. But, but, but she didn't know! She didn't know about the small fish networked with veins, eaten whole. Her imagination did not extend to the taste and mouthfeel of cuttle fish, that turns into runny dentists clay in your mouth and all the way down your throat. Uncooked crab still half in it's spiny legs. Enormous, inky prawns that look much more like the wriggling robo-virus from The Matrix that squirms its way into Keanu via his belly-button than something you would want to eat.

If I once began in Carey's camp, avidly seeking the Real Deal, then now, after nearly a year in Japan I must say, at least where sushi is concerned, I have crossed over to side with his infinitely wiser 12 year son. And I am so much happier for it. So there aint nothing Real about 'hanbaagaa sushi' - a ball of rice with half a frikkadel and gravy on top. Doesn't mean it doesn't taste (and look) kind of awesome. I think the boy might have liked the resturaunt where it was served up too, it was about as authentic as the sea aroma that comes out of an air freshening egg. Huge and as brightly lit as any McDonalds, the sushi came past each booth on a massive snaking belt. The second best thing was that every plate that came past cost only 100 yen. The third best thing was that there was hanbaagaa sushi and purorn fry and only recognisable fish (the fish I wrote off as dull before I got to Japan) and most of it was covered in mayo. The best thing was the 'express' belt that lay above the regular belt - if you ordered something (from the LCD screen inserted into your booth) it would be whizzed to you in seconds by a train shaped tray on the top belt - bullet sushi. as exciting and exacting as the trains it imitates. The sushi tray stopped dead at our booth, without even rattling a prawn tail.

So that's my confession. What exactly? That I like hamburger sushi. Is that so wrong? Its not like I put preserved ginger on it or anything (I remember hearing a real fucking wanker of a sushi snob once belittle someone for doing that: 'Umm...that's like putting ice cream on your steak' he said witheringly). Loving the Surreal more than the Real. Is that so wrong? The Real is so rich, so textured, so very very foreign. And loving it is just too hard. It takes too long. I would have to eat cuttle fish for months before I learned not to gag and years maybe before I learnt to really love it. I ask you: who has the time for that? Or indeed the inclination when instead there is a deepfry fastfood/sushi. The best-of -both-worlds, a nasty cross breed hammering its way right towards my face on a little miniature train.

gym people

I have started going to gym. Its very odd. But nice. It started when I was deeply miserable and I hated being here so desperately I wanted to rip people's heads off - but you can't. The gym was the next best option on terms of stress relief. I am no longer hating it here by the way. Must have just been the winter.
I'm getting all kinds of new muscles (thanks to my genes, I sprout fat leg muscles by just looking at the rowing machine). I try to stretch them out - make them long and balletic by stretching for at least half an hour. This is also a great time to stare at the other people in the gym. I don't feel bad about staring because they ogle me shamelessly. So I sweat more than anyone they have ever seen. Must they really make me feel so so very alien? I don't know if I will ever get used to these stares.

So when I am staring - getting my own back, there a some specific people I like to stare at the most. The first one is the fittest octogenarian alive. A leetle old lady with a bad pot haircut that can bench her body weight and run on the stair master for what would probably equal forty temples' worth of stairs. She's supple too, folding flat onto the floor between her legs if she wants to whilst staring at my boobs and tummy that prevent me from getting anywhere near that far. Next I like to stare at a man who is square in shape. I think he is a boxer or he likes to pretend to be a boxer. He wears leg warmers and doo-rags and likes to punch the little scrotum shaped punching ball a lot. He doesn't do any cardio, if he did he might loose his perfect rhomboid proportions. There is a very good looking young guy who likes to work on his carves and stretch. I like to stare at him. He is slightly mysterious and very ridiculous because he wears sunglasses and a beanie for the entire duration of his work out. A mother and daughter duo are often at the gym while I am there. The mum wears normal outside clothes - flannel shirts and cords and is there only to look after her daughter who has some kind of muscular dystrophy or something. She's a trooper though, the girl. She does bike, treadmill and stair master for ages in her peculiar jerky way. the mum just sits idly drinking tea. I'm sure she would help her daughter out if she needed it but she clearly doesn't. One of my students has started coming to the gym. No, he has probably been coming for ages but recently our times have overlapped. I guess he's been coming for ages because he is almost as fit as the octogenarian. He likes to walk around on his hands and he does his exercises according to an elaborate set of notes he carries around in a slim red file.

As you can probably tell from the patrons, this aint no Virgin Super Active Delux. I hope, with summer approaching, that is has air conditioning.

cherry blossom picnic and a bit of badminton

picture c/o Nick Bradley.

(an extract from an email to Mia)

I had a beautiful picnic on top of a mountain this weekend with a big lolloping bunch of expats. We noised and messed and yet the Japanese still love us. We are untrained puppies. The picnic was in honour of the cherry blossoms which are waning now. Saturday was an exceptional day to watch the change - in the morning the entire park was bright and shining with fat petals but as the day progressed the breeze sent them dancing from the branches into our hair and our open beers. By the time we left, late in the evening, the trees were more leaf than flower. Spring turned into summer right before my eyes. It was beautiful. And also cunningly sad somehow. The death that was wrapped up in the life of it.

On Sunday I prepared my balcony for my parents imminent arrival. It was a real dump site with black muck on everything, old cigarette butts and dead plants. Now it has super retro green astro turf on the floor and everything is clean (I even swept the walls!) I'm gonna plant basil and other things once I have properly aired and fertilized the soil in the window boxes (guess who's been reading about gardeing on the internet?). Im also coveting a wooden bench that has been lying outside my apartment building for the last few weeks. It'll go just poifectly with the fake grass. Gunch helped me word a little note that I have now attached to the bench. It says 'This bench is too good to waste! I want it. If it has not moved by Sunday I am going to take it with much thanks." . I attached the last of my South African beaded brooches to the note...just to let them know I am from a poor place but my heart is pure. Gunch says leaving little love notes on abandoned bicycles and furniture and things is not all that unusual and can sometimes lead to new friends. Oh Japan you sweet thing!

Father Brian Finn, Edward Norton's sweet priest in Keeping the Faith says of a little Bonnard in the Met - "Sometimes we don't see certain things until we're ready to see them in a certain way." I have been riding past a shoe shop a few blocks from Mihara train station for months now but on Saturday morning, suddenly and for no apparent reason, I really saw the shop and I went inside. It's the kind of shop which would blend in on Diagonal Street or the in Oriental Plaza. The sign that ran across the shop-front lintel was dated and cracked. Shoe carousels made from dry-cleaning hanger type wire carrying non-descript men's brogues cluttered the entrance. Inside I had to walk sideways through the cluttered aisles and mismatched display cases. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with boxes. The place might actually have been made of boxes so that if the it had a closing down sale, customers would literally dismantle it with every purchase.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for but I walked out with two pairs of it. The stock in was so old and neglected that the shop keeper had to follow me around with a damp cloth, wiping the cakey dust and cobwebs off any model I took an interest in (it would probably only take a day or two for him to clean the entire shop but for some reason, this seemed never to have been done). The first shoes to catch my eye that day were a pair of suede boating loafers. The shop keeper, a middle aged, unremarkable looking man who had until my arrival in front of the boating shoes been smoking and playing solitaire on a yellowing PC, scuttled over and wiped them down. Once they had been cleaned it was revealed that the toe walls were crimson and the upper was navy, the tongue and tassles were brilliant white. They were beautiful retro perfection but not retro because they were not made now with a cursory glance back in time. They were made whenever multi-tone suede boating shoes were decorous. They were the real deal. Tragedy - They didn't fit.

With our first interaction - my reaching for a shoe and his bustling up to clean it and then apologise for it's ill-fit - browsing had changed from something I did to something we did together, the shopkeeper and me versus the shop. He quickly proved himself an invaluable asset - he literally knew our opponent inside out and once he had ascertained what it was I wanted (done through instinct that bordered on the telepathic) things happened very quickly. After the boating accident, I went off to have a quiet cry in the men's Oxfords section. Shopkeeper disappeared but not, as I had initially suspected, back to his solitaire. - While I consoled myself he was rifling and arrived in among the Oxfords and presented me with a pair of shoes and a face which said "Like these?". I could see why he might have thought I would like them, they were like the boating loafers in shape. But they were not in essence the same - they were grey quilted monstrosity booties, a style that is very popular
with little Japanese grannies. Shaking my head politely I said "No" and then "Chotto..." which is an often employed Japanese euphemism,
"Chotto..." - "a little bit..." one need never finish the sentence; if you are lucky a listener will get the point . Ah! A light went on in his head - I liked the boating shoes for their je ne sais quoi, not their gestalt, of course! He rushed off and refined his search whilst I employed the I Feel Lucky approach - which in the shop, like on the internet, was frankly baffling. Rounding a corner a few minutes later I found Shopkeeper extracting three apparently identical shoes from a dusty pile. After cleaning the shoes were revealed as a ruby, dutch blue and tangerine orange examples of a patent leather pump. They were beautiful. A person who wore the boating loafer would so obviously wear these magnificent shoes! All real patent leather, all beautiful. Shopkeeper had struck gold. I tried them all on and spent long minutes examining my
self from the ankle down in a mirror deciding which colour went best with my bottom 30cm. I wanted them all but they were real leather and the faded price tag read 9000 Yen apiece. Shopkeeper sensed my simultaneous lust and trepidation. "Two thousand each" he said. Too Brilliant. I chose the tangerine pair (I will no doubt go back next month for the blue and crimson).

Riding the wave of this retail success I wandered into the athletic section - could lightning strike twice? I picked up an ancient pair of white asics with gold detailing and looked at the contemplatively. I did not intend to try them on (they were clearly far too big). What I was doing was wordlessly transmitting my intention to buy canvas shoes and what kind I liked to Shopkeeper. Yet again he disappeared. Two minutes later he returned with a pair of plain as jane white canvas takkies. Only their shape and slight yellowing belie their age - they will go with anything whilst adding an air of other-timeousness to an outfit. They fit like a glove and cost me 800 Yen. haha!

I'm never going to buy shoes anywhere else in Japan I think. Why bother? Right here in Mihara I have an undiscovered archive of shoes, old but spanking brand new. There is also a man there who can sniff through the dust to unite me with exactly the shoe I want, like a Saint Bernard finding a nearly expired climber in endless drifts of snow.

Spring's slow approach

I don't know what to write about lately so I haven't written about anything. Many of the things I have previously written about are still happening and although they are still exciting and enjoyable, they offer up no new anecdotes. I am starting to get tired of trying to be incisive in these blogs as, I am sure, you all are tired of hearing me harp on and on about how wonderful this or that is, or what deep revelation I had a the top of some bloody hill. Quite honestly many days are a simple repetition of days I have already had. Things that were new are now repetitive things. Routine. And no one wants to read about routine unless the writer can write like Raymond Carver or Brett Easton Ellis.

Of course everywhere on earth there are people plodding through days doing things they have done already, over and over again. You might say it's not worth mentioning something so inevitable but I think there is a particular pique when one wakes up in the middle of what was anticipated as an adventure and realises they are folding linen, washing dishes, eating soup and riding the same stretch of road day in and day out. Strangely it is in the moments when I catch myself doing something so completely devoid of interest, that I imagine myself in a movie. It's the kind of movie where you meet the characters at their most monotonous, you learn about the minutiae of their lives and then it all gets turned upside down by love or war breaking out or a monster coming out of the sea and tearing through the city for no apparent reason. Imagining that the minutiae of my life might be interesting to the (albeit arty and tiny) audience of a movie makes them once again interesting to me.

I have become intensely aware of the changing season - all my senses are checking and double checking any possible turns or alterations. I want Spring so badly and man, you know what they say about a watched pot! God! It's infuriating!

Today Gunch taught me 'to be or not to be、that is the question' in the hometaal -
that's a nice thing to know isn't it?
生きる　か　死め 　か　それ　が　問題だ。

ferries

I thought a ferry was a small boat, open on all sides, fat bottomed, sometimes with a viewing deck. Some ferries are like this. Other ferries, like the Shin-Nihonkai ferry I took from Tsuruga in Kansai to Tomakomai in Hokkaido are massive ships! Real ships carrying cars and trucks and cargo and other enormous metal things besides. The passengers, like myself, are the least of the ships' concern. The big money must surely be in the enormous metal things it ferries and passengers are an afterthought, some icing on top. This is why travelling by ferry can be so cheap, I think. The trip we took by ferry cost a fraction of an airline ticket and even a train ticket. I am now Shin-Nihonkai's no.1 fan and not just because I'm a cheap skate but because I'm a cheapskate who likes to feel posh.

On Shin-Nihonkai one can feel incredibly posh. Fancy a stroll on the promenade madam? Only with pleasure. The promenade is a carpeted corridor on the ship's port side. It has wicker chairs and tables where you can sit staring out of door sized windows onto the sea. Having never been at sea before I thought sea was blue and quite flat (except for around the edges). Some sea is like this perhaps. Other sea, the sea we sailed, is turbulent and grey. Everything is grey, the sky, the spray and the deep water itself - it was the most beautiful, terrifying grey of all. Thick and dark like graphite, glowing with a matt brilliance on its choppy peaks. I could have looked at it for hours. Staring into the endless deep can make one quite chilly and in that case madam, please retire to the bathhouse. Here, like in traditional Japanese onsen you shower yourself off before getting into a huge communal tub of pleasantly sweltering water. I had that deep, almost painful realisation of a truly unique experience as lay I lay there in a huge tub of hot water staring out of a port window onto the ocean and Japanese snowy peaks beyond.

After a soak, what better than a massage? The ferry's two coin operated massage chairs were my first experience of such things. They are ridiculous! They have metal knobs and twiddlers hidden in their lazy boy upholstery. They start gently and can build to Swedish Masochist levels of abuse. Not only do you feel quietly ashamed of enjoying the touch of a robot, there is, or at least there was for me, the public humiliation of the wobbling and jiggling. In Japan men and women alike are not ashamed of public preening in the windows of trains. Similarly, the shame of public wobbling and jiggling at the hands of a maniacal robot does not phase them (eating whilst walking and drinking standing up on the other hand, are things to be embarrassed about). I enjoyed the chair but not entirely. I couldn't stop imagining what I looked like - the picture was alternately dishonorable and very funny.

Ah, so the massage perhaps not to Madam's tastes. Please take yet another dip in the bath to rid yourself of the experience and then partake perhaps, in a meal from the galley restaurant (paying special attention to the nifty rubber bottomed crockery - so that your soup and coffee don't slide away from you).

Yes, I enjoyed my ferry trips so very much! Thinking back I have almost forgotten the two port towns they left from, Tsuruga and Tomakomai, grubby and sad they seemed to me. The experience was like smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiched between to stale pieces of wonderbread. In such instances, why lament the bread if in your mind, you can simply eat the filling with your fingers?